some surprising breaking news for the North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program Zaden high will not play for North Carolina this upcoming season he is no longer enrolled in the school this was announced by North Carolina's basketball program itself Zaden High 6'9 225 pound forward he only played 4.5 minutes a game in 23 appearances last year but if you've listened to our program over the last couple of months he's been a name that has repeatedly been shouted as maybe one of the more slept on underrated possible breakout candidates in the country uh given the opportunity in the North Carolina front Court I think it was very reasonable to expect Zaden High could emerge as a factor and even if he wasn't a day one starter maybe he was one of the best case scenario best players in the front Court like if all went well the best case version of North Carolina I think would have included a lot of Zaden high this year I know that from talking to Riley Davis who's our resident tarhill expert and uh it's also my personal Bel Le I liked Zaden High a lot as a recruit in High School Michigan was after him he ended up choosing North Carolina so uh let's start with just this how surprised are you by this news in late August and what does it mean for North Carolina basketball I'm I'm very surprised uh about the news and it's just like damn like you know how that that time you look at yourself like you know what like this summer wasn't the best like for the front court right but you know what it can't get any worse this is the worst front Court summer I've seen in a long time from a school and I'm a Michigan State fan they whiffed on all their targets one of their best centers in program history shaking ass for their rival they had this they have this front Court rotation where they they whiffed on all the targets they had so they're at a point where they're like okay who's the best center option or best front Court option A lot of people would say it would be Zaden high they lose Zaden high so like man I I don't know how much more like UNC fans can take because this is straight this is brutal for them it is they they don't have the front Court depth or numbers or talent to be able to lose a guy like him at this point and you know despite what they say because you know the the reports are that you know he'll red shirt this season he'll be back with the team for 2025 he's not currently enrolled this semester he'll have the El ability he'll be back on campus in Spring of 2025 this is the portal ERA this is the last time you've seen Zaden high on uncc's campus unless he's playing for another team yeah um okay so you talked about one of the reported things that's going on here um my read stop me at any point cut me off if you think I'm saying something incorrect but my read on this from assessing what is out there publicly and also asking some questions privately to people who would know I think I think we're thinking the same thing well my my read is that nobody knows what's going on oh my read was that my read was that he realized that Cooper flag is that stop this is ducking no my my my read is genuinely this like I there are reports here that allude to what you said and we can read the specifics on those in a second but there are reports here that it's academic there are reports that he is red shirting and will end up back with North Carolina there are reports that it has nothing to do with academics it might have to do with some trouble off the court um maybe reports isn't even the right word the only person I can find that is like going on record and saying this is what happened is Isaac shade and I don't know if I'm pronouncing his last name wrong so sorry Isaac if we're if we're saying it wrong but Isaac hosts locked on heels and I I would expect that Isaac is in the no and knows what's going on he is the one who laid it out like Zaden high will red shirt 2024 2025 season he'll be back with the team The Following Season he'll have three years of Eligibility left he's not enrolled this semester but he'll be back on campus in the spring so okay that sounds like there's an academic issue we're going to get it solved your career is going to get right back on track now there are a bunch of other rumors that are not reports of any kind but just the internet doing the internet things that it has nothing to do with academics and it's actually some other stuff happened so so um uh we don't need to play like the which rumor is true game but from asking people who know it seems like nobody has a clue what has actually happened here and that doesn't bode well to me just because like if it was academic I think it it would kind of leak at a certain point that that was what was going on so I don't know what's what is your read on like the actual situation and next steps yeah so I I it's really confusing you don't want to speculate because obviously you know the first thing that came to my mind with you know just this was academics right or sometimes in these situations it's like um maybe there were some type of rules violated like the school's conduct policy or something like that um you know I I guess I stopped playing the speculation game on this because you really don't know like obviously because we don't know like I hope everything's just good with Zay high like maybe he's got like you know I'm just hoping it's not something serious like a family issue that he feels the need to go back home for or something like that um but you know with everything going around about it right now the main takeaway is that like this is the last thing that North Carolina's front Court needed the absolute last thing after the summer they had um this is the last thing they needed um it's funny like I think Riley brought it up when we were talking about it um yesterday just like amongst ourselves I I haven't seen an offseason this bad when you get your National Player of the Year level candidate back it's not great why are the vi The Vibes are just so bad yeah it's not great uh Riley Davis will be back on the show tomorrow for Riley Friday I assume and uh yeah he will have to get his thoughts in longer form I um I'll just end with this from a guy who watched star player go through academic issues last year um I have a really hard time believing if academics are what is happening here which by the way sounds like that's probably the best case scenario like an academic issue sounds like it is the best reason like be best for Zaden and best for North Carolina the best reason for this dismissal would be his academic issues so let's assume that is true and that's what's going on here I have a really hard time believing if that's what's going on here you're just going to reset and be back with the team next year that's a lot easier said than done even even if the plan is like get your grades right and rejoin in the spring like a lot can change between now and then uh this is not breaking news to anybody but if you can't take care of the bare minimum academically you're letting your entire program down so like like for Doug McDaniel like I think Doug thought oh I just I got my own [ __ ] I gotta figure it out but I can still come up to home games and pull up and and score 20 and then I went to watch them play at home against Minnesota the whole team hated him like the whole team turned on him so fast and was like dude you're killing us and I there would be a level of that if I'm a North Carolina teammate like I would be looking at Zade and like dude we needed you in the front Court like so I I just don't buy even if that plan that is reported is true I don't really buy that it's going to work um because I I don't think it does historical precedent would tell us if you can't cut it in school at your school you usually find a new home and there's a lot of schools that will I don't know I thought North Carolina was one that would work around navigating some academic issues uh if you can't cut it at Carolina I don't know that it's going to work uh is North Carolina finished no okay they have RJ Davis what about after this I mean as long as they don't run into Mr Beast or like impulsive I think Elliot CDO is gonna be fine okay football season is here money is out there to be had in the form of winning bets and our friends at my bookie want to make it easy for you to do just that yeah and coming into football season you're going to have games all weekend happening everywhere and Gregory where is the only place that sleepers media places all bets I can tell you right now since last February February 1 to be exact my bookie is the only place that I have placed a sports bet I love my bookie they make it easy they get you quick payouts they have awesome promo offers in fact C they've got one right now that football fans everywhere and listeners of this show are going to want to take advantage of yeah using promo Cod sleepers that's promo Cod sleepers you can take advantage of a 50% instant deposit bonus right now that's 50% instant deposit bonus up to $1,000 over at my bookie use promo code sleepers and happy bedding home dogs aren't dogs they're wolves I'm trying to flip that into like sport like home Sports books aren't books they're novels we'll work on it that didn't work go my bookie promo code sleepers